Prosecutor in terrorism trial says ex-PM Blair may have been target
Print Edition
A MAN charged in Britain with terrorism offences at a trial so sensitive that prosecutors sought to have it heard entirely in secret might have been planning an attack on ex-prime minister Tony Blair, a court heard yesterday.
Erol Incedal, 26, was arrested in October last year with another man, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadja, who last week admitted possessing a bomb-making document on a memory card, prosecutor Richard Whittam said.
Incedal, who lives in London and is a British citizen, denies charges of preparing for acts of terrorism with unnamed others abroad and possessing information useful to terrorism.
“The acts of terrorism that they were preparing for were either against a limited number of individuals, an individual of significance or a more wide-ranging and indiscriminate attack such as the one in Mumbai (India) in 2008,” Whittam told the jury at the Old Bailey court.
While Whittam said there was no specific target, he said a piece of paper with the address of a property owned by Blair was found in Incedal’s black Mercedes when it was stopped for a traffic offence in September 2013.
“In the context of this case as a whole you may think it has some significance,” he said.
Blair, 61, who has a house in central London, was prime minister from 1997 to 2007, during which Britain joined the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He is now a peace envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, which comprises the US, UN, Russia and European Union.
The Crown Prosecution Service had originally asked for Incedal’s trial to be held entirely in secret on national security grounds but the application was rejected in June by the Court of Appeal. The jury was told the case would be heard in three parts, some open to public and press, some only to 10 journalists who will not be able to report the proceedings and must hand over their notes, and the rest in secret.
Whittam told the court that police had found a notebook in Incedal car with a note saying: “Fight those of the infidel who are near to you.”
Security officials had placed a listening device in the vehicle and Incedal was heard saying he hated white people, listening to “jihadi” music with references to slaughter, expressing concern about the police search of his car, and talking about a “Plan B,” the court heard.
Two weeks later, he was arrested in dramatic fashion by armed police who stopped his car in London, shooting special rounds to disable the vehicle.
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